Midlife Crisis Hawaii

Thursday 3 – Rain

Time for a Thursday 3 questionnaire. Since it’s been raining all week, I figured Rain would be the topic.

So cut and paste the questions and add your answers or simply answer the questions by number. And don’t hesitate to leave additional comments, stories, and other tidbits of information about Rain.

Do you love or loathe Rain?

Were you allowed to play in the rain?

Name me a song with the word “Rain” somewhere in the title or lyrics.

Okay, here’s my replies:

Do you love or loathe Rain?I love the rain. Nothing like feeling so secure in your house while it’s raining outside. Especially when it’s time for bed – falling asleep to the pitter-patter of the rain falling on the roof. Which reminds me, we need new gutters…

Were you allowed to play in the rain?Never. About the most we could do when we were kids was stand under the loud totan roof when it was raining and stick out hands out to catch some raindrops.
But once the rain stopped – it meant jumping on our bikes and riding as fast as we could through the rain puddles. We always made sure we lifted our legs up to make sure our pants didn’t get wet.

Name me a song with the word “Rain” somewhere in the title or lyrics.Before The Rain – Lee Oskar

1.Do you love or loathe Rain?
Love it! (except after washing the car)
2.Were you allowed to play in the rain?
Yes…football in the mud…nothing’s better! Still enjoy running in the rain.
3.Name me a song with the word “Rain” somewhere in the title or lyrics.
Rainy Day Song by Country Comforthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvEONJoVeyA

Do you love or loathe Rain? Man, tough one. I think I have to say both. Since yard work falls under my command, the rain really gives it a nice green scenery. But on the other hand, the unwanted weeds grow faster too. My car is chronically dirty. So the rain is a plus because no need wash car. But the rain slows me down when I’m driving.

With this politically neutral answer, my name is Seawalker, and I’m running for office (and I approve this message too — LOL).

Were you allowed to play in the rain? The rain and dogs were a newspaperboy’s worst enemy. But it came with the job. Mom used to worry because we’d be wet to our BBD’s by the time the papers were delivered. We walked to school, rain or shine. But walking in the rain caused our shoes and socks to get all wet. It’s a junk feeling to have your toes wrinkled until you pau school at 2:15.

Do you love or loathe Rain?
I used to hate the rain while in Viet Nam… Monsoons, horrible… always wet and uncomfortable… but now, I like the sound of rain during the nite time, easy to fall asleep.

Were you allowed to play in the rain?
No… everyone always told us that we going get sick if we play in the rain, but that didn’t stop us… loved to play in the rain, especially on days that it poured, would go to Kam Field and surf on the grass.

Name me a song with the word “Rain” somewhere in the title or lyrics.
Raindrops by Dee Clark…Raindrops keep falling on my head, BJ Thomas

1. Do you love or loathe Rain?
Neutral. i neither love it, nor loathe it; however, given where I live, I had better get used to it, since it rains most of the year. Ask a child around here what color is the sky, they won’t answer, “blue” like other kids, they’ll say “gray.”

2. Were you allowed to play in the rain?
I don’t about being allowed to play in the rain. It was more like if I was outside or not when it started to rain.

3. Name me a song with the word “Rain” somewhere in the title or lyrics.
Singing in the Rain.

I love the rain since I don’t have to water the lawn when it rains. Not that watering the yard is difficult, I just turn on the automatic sprinklers. It’s been so cool when it rains, I stay in bed a few hours longer than usual. No rush. No place to be by 7:45AM every morning like before when I worked full time. We were not permitted to play in the rain as a kid. Always were told we’d get sick. We got rained on a lot since school was a mile away, literally
Seawalker: Thanks, I love “Rhythm of the Falling Rain” DJ’s seem to play this song on the radio a lot when it rains

1. Do you love or loathe Rain? Depends. I get sick of it from about November through July (i.e., the rainy season in Seattle). During August, I enjoy the occasional rainy day because it washes the dust out of the air.

2. Were you allowed to play in the rain? I don’t think so, but at my elementary school, when it rained, we would float paper boats through the drainage ditches.

1. I live in Hilo, would go out of my mind that if I didn’t like rain!
2. No. Envious of my cousins who went mud surfing in the rain
3. Rainy Days & Monday–no, no tooo sad; Riders on the Storm–no, no tooo creepy, I’ll go with Kan–Hilo’s such a rainy old town.

1. Do you love or loathe Rain?
I love when it rains. We don’t get enough here in So. Cal. When I come back home, I’ll walk around outside in the rain or better yet, go to Kalama beach when it’s raining.
2. Were you allowed to play in the rain? All the time. Like mark’75 says, mud football in the rain is the best!
3. Name me a song with the word “Rain” somewhere in the title or lyrics. “It never rains in California”, “Let it rain”.

“Rhythm of the Falling Rain.” Thanks Seawalker! That song always takes me back to Tokyo, 1970. On our tour, we stayed briefly at the Akasaka Tokyu Hotel. Given the time, there were a lot of GI’s in Tokyo on R and R. The hotel room had a radio, and among the Japanese stations, there was the Armed Forces Radio station. That was the first time I heard this song.

1. Can’t loathe rain, we need rain. Can’t love rain when it cancels your tennis or outdoor sports but can still run in rain and actually feels great. @dihudfan, I remember the monsoon season in nam, long rainy days and nights, always wet, sloshing in the mud, leeches and mosquitos everywhere, not fun when sleeping in your poncho outside but you get used to it.
2. Hmmm, don’t remember if we were not allowed to play in the rain but we did anyway. However, there was a time during the cold war and nuclear testing that we weren’t allowed to go outside for recess when it rained.
3. Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 by Bob Dylan. Not sure of significance in title but has no reference to rain in the lyrics…
Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re trying to be so good
They’ll stone ya just a-like they said they would
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to go home
Then they’ll stone ya when you’re there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

Do you love or loathe Rain? Love it when i’m at home or it caused school to close. I dislike it if I have to drive or walk in it.

Were you allowed to play in the rain? No my parents wouldn’t allow it, and now that i’m older im afraid of getting sick. I think I would enjoy it though.
Name me a song with the word “Rain” somewhere in the title or lyrics.
It’s raining men

sometimes i like the rain, sometimes i don’t. i don’t like it when i have to walk in it and i have to stay dry. i don’t like it when i’m at the stadium and it starts to pour and i get wet even if i have on a poncho! i don’t like it when there is so much of it, it turns my driveway into a river and my garage floods! but, i do like it when it’s been raining and everything seems cleaner. i like it when i’m safe at home and can watch the rain from my window (as long as it’s not pouring… ’cause then i gotta watch my driveway and the stream in the back! ). i like it when i’m walking in the hot sun and a light drizzle falls.

my mom would let us play in the rain. it was one of our favorite things to do… go outside with umbrellas and walk around in the rain! inevitably, we’d get all wet anyway! and, even i’ve played mud football… it’s kinda gross (i don’t like to get dirty!) but it’s tons of fun with everyone – and the ball – slipping and sliding all over the place!

I was at my friends beach house and it started to rain and rain and rain. That was the time it rained continually for 40 days from that weekend, remember that? I think it was about 4-5 years ago. Now every time we are at the beach house and it starts to rain we joke about that weekend. We are going to be there on Vet’s day weekend next week. I hope it doesn’t rain.

@M- I remember that 40 days of rain. Had to deal with flash floods and trees falling over blocking roads. I had to go out in the rain to open up barricades for traffic flow. The rain came down so hard and in such great amounts that the umbrella was of no help. It was soaked. Every additional drop caused a spray of water on me.

My most vivid memory (it still replays in my mind) is of that usually bone dry stream that runs along Kalakaua Ave by King St. I was diverted off of Kapiolani and ended up there, the stream was literally bubbling over the top onto the sidewalk. And since the streets were already flooded it was like driving thru a pond.

The next day I drove past the back streets there and it was a huge mess of mud and rocks.

…no, I didn’t drive there to be niele, that is my route to get to work.

@m- I remember the 40 days of rain… I think I started to grow webb feet
I lived in back of a park when young, and remember the older guys used to go play football in the rain and mud. Their mamas must’ve hit the roof when they came home. Any responses from your moms? (those that mentioned playing mud football)
here’s one- Walking In the Rain With The One I Love…

Four scores and seven years ago, when running was something I enjoyed, completing the Honolulu Marathon became the feather in my cap. You know what the toughest part about running in a race? It was running by the water stations. The ground was so saturated with water that your shoes would be soaked to your socks. Ask any runner what their dislikes are and the rain, wind and downhills are at the top of their list. For some odd reason, everyone just grabs the cups to drink and spill about half in the process. But the next day, all you hear are complaints of sore legs form the runners. My running days are no more, but my dislike of wet shoes still remain.

In high school, we played a soccer game at Castle during a thunderstorm. Their entire field turned into a mud bog, the kind where your feet came out of the shoes because they were stuck in the mud. With bodies slipping and flopping, knocking over other bodies, it was the sloppiest, messiest…most fun game I ever played. Oh, and it ended in a scoreless tie.

@Mark – We visited a good friend who was civilian working for the Federal Government in Japan. Think it was called Camp Zama. Anyway, we got to stay a couple of nights in this U.S. military hotel, Sanno, in Tokyo. Was that near the Akasaka Tokyu Hotel? We stayed at the Sanno in the 90s.

@Seawalker: Don’t know offhand, but it was quite a posh hotel. I remember passing the U.S. Embassy on the way to the hotel. What struck me about the Embassy, was seeing jeeps with machine guns mounted along with gun emplacements with sandbags stacked at the entrance gates. Guess it was 1970 after all.

@ Mark75: my class graduated in that mud bog. We had broken with tradition about what color gown we wore at graduation. Each class wore maroon, white, or gold in sequence. We wore maroon (I think we were supposed to wear white). Well, the graduation gods caught up with us and we were drowned rats walking through the muck.

The last New Year’s Eve when I was still living at home it rained heavily. I think we got over 12 inches of rain in 24 hours. Maunawili Stream flooded. My boss at the time lived in a house with Maunawili Stream in his backyard, and I think they got flooded too.

The heaviest rain I remember in Seattle (it usually just drizzles all the time here) was one evening about three years ago in the fall. Sweetie and I were driving in the Capitol Hill neighborhood on our way home one evening when the rain suddenly came down so heavily he couldn’t see and he had to pull over. When it cleared enough to see, a wave of water came down a cross street – it had to be 4-5 inches. Good thing he wasn’t going fast or we would’ve hydroplaned right down the hill.

KAN- I remember that New Years Eve flood. I was working at a convenience store and people were going around the island to get to Hawaii Kai. This one lady came in to use the restroom. The policy was not to let anyone use it since it was in the storeroom. I let her. She was crying big time. She left her kids at home and was supposed to be back well before midnight. I think it was around 1am. She was all worried about them.

I remember the New Years eve flood. Paula was hapai with our first daughter. We were heading to my mom’s house in Kailua when we were turned back to town at the pali tunnels. Good thing.
My mom’s house flooded big time. Her house is about 3 feet off the ground, yet the water went about 1 1/2 feet into her house. The neighbor used a surfboard to take my mom and the other elderly neighbors to higher ground.
If we had made it to Kailua, we would’ve probably stayed at my mom’s and would’ve been in the flood waters too.

Just click on the title to hear a sample.
Couldn’t find the whole song.

Thanks NaPueo. This song was running through my head all day yesterday. I didn’t know the title so I was trying to find it using the lyrics. No luck. Plus, I thought it was something sung by Bobby Vee or Bobby Vinton.
After you posted the Kui Lee link, then it came back to me!
My brother had that album and I used to listen to it all the time. I should go buy the CD.

1) Gotta LOVE RAIN — grew up in Hamakua area on Hawaii island, few years in Hilo, and more than 20 in Manoa.
2) Of course had fun playing in it and with the mud too.
3) Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again/Fortunes; Rainy Night in Georgia/Brook Benton; Walking in the Rain/Jay & Americans/Ronettes; Rainy Days and Mondays/Carpenters; Here Comes the Rain Again/Eurythmics; Don’t Let the Rain Come Down/Serendipity Singers; The Rain, the Park, and other things/Cowsills; McArthur Park/Richard Harris; Rhapsody in the Rain/Lou Christie; Cryin’ in the Rain/Everly Brothers; Raindrops/DeeDee Clark; Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head/BJ Thomas; I Love A Rainy Night/Eddie Rabbit; Summer Rain/Johny Rivers; Save it For a Rainy Day/Stephen Bishop; Fire and Rain/James Taylor; Thunder and Lightning/Chi Coltrane; You’re As Right As Rain/Stylistics; Caught in the rain/Batdorf and rodney; Lady Rain/Hall & Oates; I Can’t Stand the Rain/Ann Peebles; A Rainy Day/Rascals; Surrender the Rain/Lindsey Buckingham; Mudfootball/Jack Johnson; Cloudy/AWB; Stormy/Classics IV; Alabama Rain/Jim Croce;Box of Rain/Grateful Dead;Yesterday I Heard the Rain/Tony Bennet; Come Rain or Come Shine/Frank Sinatra; Hilo’s Such A Rainy Old Town/Olomana; When the Rain Comes/Beatles.

“On a Sunday morn sat a maid forlorn
With her sweetheart by her side,
Through the windowpane, she looked at the rain,
“We must stay home, Joe,” she cried.
“There’s a picnic, too, at the old Point View,
It’s a shame it rained today.”
Then the boy drew near, kissed away each tear,
And she heard him softly say:
“Wait till the sun shines, Nellie,
When the clouds go drifting by,
We will be happy, Nellie,
Don’t you sigh.
Down Lover’s Lane we’ll wander,
Sweethearts you and I.
Wait till the sun shines, Nellie,
Bye and bye.”

“What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline”

One time on the H-1 going east, it was just raining cats and dogs. When we hit the Mapunapuna area, cars were actually stalled in the far right lane. It must have been high tide because the of the drainage problem. But boy ‘yo boy, that was some deluge.

For you Kaneohe residents and beyond, when it rains hard, the part of Kamehameha Highway by Waiahole Valley is just covered with water. There’s nothing to do but just sit in your car and wait until the water subsides. Why can’t they just elevate the road to improve drainage? Oh, I forgot… they want to keep the country, country.

1. Do you love or loathe Rain? I don’t like being caught in a heavy rain – especially with no umbrella – but I like to fall asleep to the sound of it.
2. Were you allowed to play in the rain? We were told we’d get sick if we played in it, but I remember I loved to run around in summer showers as a kid.
3. Name me a song with the word “Rain” somewhere in the title or lyrics. Mahalo for leaving some songs for me to mention:
Rain Kilikilihune

@ankles – At least ASU is at #29 in the BCS. Hawaii is now #80. If the Warriors keep it up, the only Bowl they’re going to is the porcelain one with the flushing handle. Better bet Hawaii next week if you going have lobster. Nevada going give Hawaii dirty lickins’ on national TV. Early line opened at 9-1/2, Nevada.

About The Author

Rodney Lee is a Baby Boomer - and proud of it. Rodney started the Midlife Crisis blog back in the days of The Honolulu Advertiser and ran it for about 3 years. After The Honolulu Advertiser shut down, Rodney decided to continue his blog here at Midlife Crisis Hawaii. New blog entries are added every Monday and Thursday.